Land of the "impure"

I write this with numerous apologies to those who might think I am exaggerating.

August 14, 1947 was supposed to be a dawn of happiness and joy for millions of Muslims of the Sub-continent, when their struggle met a logical end in the form of a new state, which they named PAKISTAN or "land of the pure".

But over the years, this land has become so impure and dirty that the stench that arises from it is far awful than the decomposed body of an orphan who has died on the streets, while insensitive people pass by and throw money at him thinking he is alive and just acting to get alms.

I still remember the words that I read of an American lawyer in the Aimal Kansi case, who stood tall in a US court and said so proudly that "Pakistanis would sell their mothers for 20 dollars". Furious as it may make one, those words fit so well today on us Pakistanis, but we don't seem to be learning from our ignominious mistakes.

Handing over our own countrymen to outsiders for a couple of thousand dollars and earning millions like the "enlightened" general Pervez Musharraf said in his autobiography is one thing, but giving away our sisters, daughters and mothers to infidels so they can satiate their barbarity is something that should throw us deep down the abyss of shame and humiliation.

One such sister in case is Dr Afia Siddiqui or prisoner No 650, held in Bagram jail, Afghanistan, for over five years now. She has gone through every form of torture and cruelty that a sick and sadist mind can invent. But to our utter disgust, no Pakistani leader – secular, liberal or religious – has yet taken up her issue, while people in the British parliament can feel Dr Siddiqui's pain from thousands of miles away. That is the humanity that they have and we lack.

We as a nation have failed badly and as a state have flopped to the extent of surpassing all yardsticks of the meaning of the word. What is the use of a country when it cannot protect your dignity, when it cannot feed your wife and children, when you can be kidnapped by your own intelligence agencies and traded for money with foreigners? And then you know that you are now at their mercy; and that no one will raise their voice for you unless, of course, you are a British, American or Australian citizen.

Pakistan has from day one been a battlefield for outside forces – the British, Arabs, Americans and Chinese. Everyone has tested their strength in our land but through all the wars, we have foolishly owned them as our own; our leaders telling their foreign masters that it is "as much our fight as it is theirs".

Time is surely an excellent judge and today I am sorry to say that perhaps the making of Pakistan wasn't fruitful as it should have been. The huge sacrifices and numerous murders and rapes of the Muslims of the Sub-continent, who wanted a glimpse of this "paradise", have all gone down the drain. Pakistan has turned into the "land of the impure".